


if our grave was watered by the rain

by fortunedays



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 5x04 add on bc alex and liv are in love and that's that, F/F, established a/o, okay this is like angst central but what else is new, technically not a major character death bc alex is alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunedays/pseuds/fortunedays
Summary: Sometimes, grief is just love with no place to go. Olivia learns that the hard way.add on to 5x04 - loss.





	if our grave was watered by the rain

“Let’s get out of here,” Alex says, and the night’s tension seems to dissipate.

Olivia hovers close to Alex, Elliot’s nosiness be damned, because this case has frightened her more than she’d like to admit. She always knew that doing this job put her life on the line, but she never thought that it meant Alex too. She’d invited Alex to stay with her, and she had given in after her initial protestations. Olivia couldn’t tell if she or Alex was more anxious. The nights passed with little sleep, as Olivia held Alex and prayed for the case to be over.

As they exit onto the street, Alex hooks her pinky with Olivia’s and attempts a reassuring smile. Despite the worry still hidden deep within Alex’s eyes, Olivia thinks they’ll be okay.

_It’s over,_ Olivia thinks, as Elliot rambles on. _It’s over._

It’s over until the shots ring out. Olivia hits the ground, losing her grip on Alex along the way. When her brain catches up with her surroundings, she sees Elliot halfway down the block, and no Alex.

She spins and sees her and stops, frozen, until her instincts kick in. She wraps her hands around Alex’s shoulder and presses as hard as she can, yelling for Elliot to call a bus.

“Alex,” Olivia whispers, at a loss for words of comfort. “Alex, look at me. Look at me! It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart, just look at me. No, no, no, Alex, don’t close your eyes. Alex. Alex!”

Olivia shakes Alex until she opens her eyes, glassy with tears. Alex tries to speak, but the only audible words are _Liv_ and _sorry_ , and another word that Olivia knows isn’t her name but is close enough to break her heart. She holds on to Alex and tries not to cry.

She doesn’t remember the ambulance arriving. She feels them take Alex from her arms and Elliot holding her back, and then Alex is gone, gone, into a haze of red and blue noise.

She remembers the waiting. Elliot paces for hours and dozens of calls are made, and one by one the team arrives. Cragen and Elliot talk in hushed tones about the cartel. Munch stands guard over Olivia, occasionally interfering with Fin’s attempts to harass the nurses for news. Huang, grimly, watches them all.

She waits there for hours, head in her bloody hands, until they tell her that Alexandra Cabot is dead.

The tears come then, in suffocating sobs, and Cragen tells Elliot to take her home. She goes, if only because she has no energy left to fight him. At her apartment, Elliot washes Alex’s blood off her hands and arms, and makes her change out of her bloody clothes. He doesn’t ask about the tears, but he sees Alex’s things scattered around Olivia’s apartment, and he knows.

When the tears have subsided, Olivia thanks him, and cocoons herself into a blanket on the couch. She doesn’t tell him that Alex bled out whispering, _Liv, I love you._ But if the pity in his eyes means anything, she knows he knows that too.

* * *

 

The following days don’t seem real.

Alex’s picture gets plastered on the front page; New York’s “slain ADA” gets more attention than Alex Cabot ever would. Elliot keeps the newspaper on his desk like some sort of macabre motivation. Across the desk, Olivia stares a hole in her closed files, feeling empty. Her only voluntary movement is to occasionally reach out and stroke the photo that now leans against her monitor. It’s one of the only pictures she has of herself and Alex; there were few people who knew about them, and even fewer to take pictures.

This one, Olivia remembers, wasn’t even taken by a friend. They had been visiting Alex’s mother and had gone to an outdoor market that she raved about. Another couple had stopped them and asked Olivia to take a picture of them beneath a flowered archway. As thanks, they had taken a similar picture of Olivia and Alex, their arms wrapped around each other, laughing. They were so happy then. It makes Olivia ache.

When Cragen tells them that the feds want to meet, Olivia’s confusion is lost under the waves of missing Alex and having to do her job. She shoves it all down and follows Elliot to the car, trying her best to focus only on the dark, empty road ahead of them.

She’s pushed enough of her emotions away by the time they arrive. Elliot asks why they’re here and the agent’s response is something about how stubborn she is, and Olivia hasn’t even formed her question when the car door opens.

“Alex,” she breathes, and everything floods back.

She looks disastrous and beautiful and fully, painfully alive. Olivia steps closer, on the brink of tears, her eyes begging for answers to questions that she can’t ask in front of the others. The others talk around her, but Olivia only has eyes for Alex. Despite the pain she’s caused, Alex, too, can’t keep her gaze from the woman she loves.

It isn’t until Elliot whispers the words Witness Protection that Olivia’s brain kicks into gear. “How long?” she chokes out, and Alex’s lip trembles.

“Until Cesar Velez is arrested or dead,” she says, knowing that it’s not enough.

Alex wants to say more, to say sorry, to tell Olivia that she needed _her_ to know, not Elliot, because she wouldn’t be able to live if their places were switched. But the DEA agents are hurrying her back into the car, and the heartbroken tears shining in Olivia’s eyes are the most painful way that Alex has ever said goodbye.

Behind her, Olivia can feel Elliot heading back to the car, but she can’t leave Alex like this. They’ve pretended for so long, and Olivia doesn’t want to pretend like Alex was nothing.

“Wait,” she cries, her voice scratchy with tears, and grabs the door before the agent can close it. This close to Alex, Olivia feels like breaking down completely.

With her good arm, Alex reaches out and pulls Olivia closer. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Liv, I’m so sorry. I know it won’t be enough. But I needed you to know.”

Olivia’s tears start to fall, and she brushes them away. “I know, Lex, I know. Just promise me you’ll come home.” She leans down and presses her forehead to Alex’s, reveling in their final moments of closeness. “Please.”

Alex cradles Olivia’s face, wondering how she can make a promise that she might not be able to keep. But Olivia is crying, and so is Alex, and Alex knows she can’t leave like this. She pulls Olivia down and kisses her, deep and sad and slow. For a moment, nothing exists but them.

When they pull away, the emptiness begins to set in. Olivia can feel Alex moving away, despite neither of them moving. “Come home,” she begs.

Heart breaking, Alex whispers, “I will.”

And just like that, Alex Cabot is gone, and Olivia stands crying on the asphalt, wondering if she was ever really there at all.


End file.
